How Cherokees Used Trees of Southern Appalachia for Food, Medicine, and Craft

Foraging wild food requires practice, knowledge, and experience on your landscape. Notice I used the word your land. What you’ve read in books and watched on YouTube may not apply to your locale. While survival principles may never change, self-reliance is local.

Many of us are self-taught in skills of wilderness living. However, one way to shorten your learning curve is to find an experienced skills practitioner in your area who is actually Doing the Stuff. After receiving instruction, you gain knowledge. Knowledge weighs nothing but is not enough. You make knowledge applicable through time and experience and context. There is no substitute for time in your woods.

I had the recent pleasure of attending my third class at Medicine Bow, A Primitive School of Earthlore in the North Georgia Mountains. If you look up Renaissance Man in the dictionary, Mark Warren’s bio should appear, but won’t. He’s not only a walking encyclopedia of woods-lore, he won the U.S.National Champion in Slalom/Downriver combined and the World Championship Longbow Tournament in 1999. On top of his wealth of outdoor knowledge, he is also a musical composer and published author.

Mark’s knowledge of the Cherokee uses of plants and trees is the foundation for anyone interested in wilderness living and self-reliance. I wrote him an email after the class asking assistance on a question for this article. I wanted to know the degree to which Cherokees depended on domesticated crops verses wild foods.

Mark’s response:

“Everyone knows about Cherokee farming and the 3 sisters (corn, squash, and beans), but the wild growth of forest and field was actually “farmed” too, by pruning or clearing for light. For example, swamp dogwoods were pruned to encourage survival shoots for basketry and arrow shafts. Large areas along flood plains were burned to help create a monopoly of river cane (for the same two crafts). A lot of those “brakes” can still be seen. The same is true of foods. I have a sense of why Amicalola was sacred to the Cherokee. I suspect it was for the prolific sochani that grows there. It’s also called green-headed coneflower. Cherokee women in NC still harvest it in spring and freeze for the year.”

Think about this astounding bit of research…
“The Cherokees of the 19th century are listed as having around 800 plants in their repertoire (Mooney, 1992). This from a pool of about 2,400 species of plants to work from or about a third!” ~ Source

Every year I add more plants and trees to my food-medicine-craft list. But 800! I’ve got a lot to learn and experience.

“In the school of the woods, there is no graduation day.”

~ Horace Kephart

Trees of Southern Appalachia

Wild plant foragers get excited this time of the year. Green shoots make their way through the soil for another growing season. Autumn turns to winter and the smorgasbord disappears. But trees, they stand ready to share their resources year-round.

Winter tree identification would not be challenging if trees would stop dropping their leaves. Mark taught winter botany lessons which I had never been exposed to. Sharing all I learned would take several articles. For our purposes today, we will explore 3 of my favorite trees in my woods and how the Cherokee and settlers used them for food, medicine, and craft resources.

Tulip Tree

Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) it is not a poplar at all. It is actually in the Magnolia ((Magnoliaceae)) family of flowering trees. There are many common names for Liriodendron tulipifera besides Tulip Poplar… Yellow Poplar, Canoe Wood, Yellow Wood, and Tulip Tree. That is one reason it is important to use scientific names of plants and trees… if you can manage to pronounce them. This will remove any confusion over common names.

Food

The Tulip Tree, while not a nutritional powerhouse, is a favorite of mine mainly for craft and outdoor self-reliance. Tulip Tree blooms are a main source of nectar for honey bees which produces a dark, amber honey loaded with antioxidants.

The only part of a Tulip Tree that I know is edible is the nectar in the flowering blooms.

Carving ~ The soft hardwood lends itself to easy carving of spoons, bowls, pottery paddles, canoe paddles, and even the canoe itself. One common name of this tree is Canoe Wood.

This design will be carved into the Tulip Tree paddle and used to imprint designs on primitive process pottery.

Insulation ~ Shredded inner bark can be stuffed between layers of clothing to create dead air space to retain body heat in a survival situation.

Roofing/Siding ~ Outer bark slabs used for shingles and siding on shelters.

Hickory

Hickories make excellent wildlife resource as squirrels and feral pigs love to eat their nut meat. Pignut (Carya glabra), Mockernut (Carya tomentosa), and Shagbark (Carya ovata) are the three hickories I’m most familiar with in Georgia, Mockernut being the most common.

Hickory Milk ~ “They pound them to pieces, and then cast them into boiling water, which, after passing through fine strainers, preserves the most oily part of the liquid; this they call by a name which signifies hiccory milk; it is as sweet and rich as fresh cream, and is an ingredient in most of their cookery, especially homony and corn cakes.” – Source

Medicine

Infusion of boiled bark for arthritis pain.

Inhaling fumes of young shoots on hot rocks as a treatment for convulsions.

Cold remedy

Liver aid

Gynecological aid

Dermatological issues

Craft

This ax handle started out as the hickory tree pictured in the background

Pine

There are 36 pines in North America to choose from. These evergreens are easy to spot for anyone. To narrow down the species, count the needles. The Eastern White Pine (Pinusstrobus) is the only species in Eastern North America with 5 needles in the fascicle sheath (the paper-like sheath surrounding the base of the needles).

Hemlock is a part of the pine family and grows in southern Appalachia. Like other pines in our region, the inner bark is edible.

Food

Pine nuts are edible and tasty.

Inner bark was eaten when other foods were scarce. Should be boiled/cooked since it is high in turpenes. Can also be dried and ground into a flour.

Rescue Signals ~ A pre-made signal fire built with green pine boughs on top will generate enough white smoke to be seen for miles.

Pine needles were used to make baskets and resin was used as a sealer.

Logs were used in home building.

White pine and hemlock are both good wood for friction fire.

Dried and ground hemlock inner bark used as flour.

Dried pine “flour” is useful when rubbed on the body to cover human scent while hunting.

Mark says that Cherokees called trees “The Standing People.” Trees do not walk to new locations like animals in search of food. They are always in the same spot. Learning to identify trees and their resources will put you in a better position of appreciation and stewardship of your natural environment.

To mention all the trees used by the Cherokee would be better addressed in book form. In this article, we’ve highlighted three of my favorite trees in our woodlands. I’ll write future blogs covering more. Here’s a teaser on future posts… Dogwood, Sourwood, Basswood, Black Walnut, Persimmon, Beech, Black Cherry, and the list continues.

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45 thoughts on “How Cherokees Used Trees of Southern Appalachia for Food, Medicine, and Craft”

I noticed how you emphasize the concept of using your knowledge to gain experience. As an RN Professor we would often call nursing “applied science”. First you are taught information, then you learn how to apply that information.. you have a remarkable way of teaching people how to apply their knowledge. It takes time and practice and experience. Glad I found this site.

my dads family would often talk about the chickapen tree as a source of many uses. i dont know but suspect the spelling is chinquapin. many of my ancestors emphasized that they came from EASTERN tennessee, somehow ended up in missouri or oklahoma (where my dad was born) and eventually in california. one of my civil war ancestors lists one of his last places of residence as the cherokee nation, but never says were. thanks for the article. i am still putting together family lore and history. this type of article keeps me motivated.

One of the very best drawing poultices ever is goldenseal and egg white. Mix it well, place a dot if it over affected areas and loosely cover (so it gets plenty of air. A piece of cotton ball on paper tape is ideal.) This remarkable concoction actually removes toxins interstitially so the skin is not broken. As with all poultices, wash between applications. At least, that is what I do 😉

So much good stuff here… A lot of the specifics might not translate to where I’m at here in Illinois; as you said, it’s all about “your land!” That being said, I’m always getting great lessons from your page, and at least some of that gets translated into actionable learning here! As always, thanks for sharing!

Nice article Todd. I would like to add that as folks move forward with their research on edible/medicinal plants, be cognizant of how the author/instructor says things. If he says “in my experience,” or “it tastes like this to me,” you know he is actually using it vs. the author who says this tribe used it for this or that — nothing wrong with this/that, but when it comes to medicinals in particular, aboriginals sometimes thought differently than we do today. A person 100+ years ago that doesn’t know the instant relief we get from today’s modern medicines will surely have a different appreciation for a medicinal plant than we do. Just something to look for contextually. Good news is Mark has tried them and is the real deal. Best, Chris

Thanks for adding value, Chris. That’s one reason I like Sam Thayer’s book Foragers Harvest. Like Mark, he has actual experience to back up his teaching/writing. Context is everything. Hope to see you soon.
~ Todd

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